Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Sometimes the planets align and something I bake turns out, not just in flavor, but in appearance as well. If you've read my past posts, you'll see that my food appearance leaves much to be desired. Much.

My pumpkin muffins were well received. The golden raisins were the key. I would add more next time, and another blogger (I'm sorry, I can't remember who at the moment) drizzled chocolate over the tops. I'm so there next time!

The only thing I noticed is that this made 12 muffins, but I had more dough leftover so I made mini muffins for the kids.

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Well, I've been busy baking, but haven't posted much as of late. I'll try to get everything up in the next few weeks.

I love the idea of baking with the same thing as everyone else, especially since I have so many baking disasters. Maybe this way I can find out where I go so abysmally wrong sometimes and maybe I can actually fix my mistakes! Hallelujah!!

So, this week, my first week was with Almond Biscotti. I've been DYING to try Biscotti, ever since I saw Giada make it one day and realized it didn't look too hard. What a perfect opportunity.

So, I finally got to it on Monday, at the last moment and even though I had read over the recipe a handful of times, I apparently wasn't paying attention to what I read.

Ahh, in the very first step...add baking powder. Shoot. I just ran out making a cake and forgot to pick some up at the store. After a moment of internet research, I found that I could mix Cream of Tarter and Baking Soda at a 2:1 ratio to get the same thing. Awesome, I'm back in it.

Made my dough went to add my almonds...obviously I didn't look at the bag REAL close because what I thought were almonds were actually pecans. A bit late now. What the heck, I crushed them a bit and added them instead.

Other than those two adjustments I followed the recipe exactly. My first baking time could have been increased about 5 minutes because I had a hard time transferring one of my logs to a cutting board. I had no problems with the other log. My second cooking time followed along with what Dorie suggested.

So, how did they turn out? Hmmm...flavor a 10. They are a universal hit in our house and that says a lot, especially since there's not even a hint of chocolate in them!

Appearance - this is my major issue in the baking world. My baked goods do not appear as they should and no amount of squinting can make it better. My biscotti were too thick, I will cut them thinner next time for sure. Not only that, they were a bit flat. Not real 'biscotti' looking, more like a shortbread cooking look going on here.

Final Result - Will become a regular in my house. There are so many ways to fix them up and they go great with coffee, tea, hot chocolate...